This invention relates generally to wireless communication systems, and more particularly to a technique for allocating communication resources among a number of different users.
The widespread availability of personal computers has led to a situation where the public requires access to the Internet and other computer networks at low cost. The demand for such access is being expanded to include the need to connect portable devices, such as laptop computers, personal digital assistants, and the like, to computer networks. Unfortunately, the wireless Internet access market presents a merging of two very different cultures. The traditional wireline Internet access culture expects that access data rates are fixed, such as at the 56 kilobits per second (Kbps) which is commonly available over voice grade, residential telephone lines. This marketplace expects, however, that data transfer is unmetered, namely, users expect to transfer as much data as they wish, as long as they pay a flat fee per month. This being able to access is quite different from the traditional wireless cellular telephone model that provides voice communication. In particular, the cellular telephone network provides ready access with high quality connection rates. However, the volume of traffic is not expected to be free; that is, the users of cellular telephones have been trained to expect to have to pay a per-minute charge for access.
Market studies have shown that wireless Internet users are not likely to pay for metered access or even per-megabyte usage rates. Rather, they expect to have unlimited access or at least the appearance of being able to access unlimited volumes of data. Unfortunately, wireless system infrastructure typically provides for only a very limited amount of resources, such as wireless channels in a given cell. Thus, access to these limited physical resources must be shared among users in some way.